{"id":221970,"date":"2025-09-16T12:03:55","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T17:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/new-laser-technique-reveals-nearly-20-previously-hidden-states-of-matter"},"modified":"2025-09-16T12:03:55","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T17:03:55","slug":"new-laser-technique-reveals-nearly-20-previously-hidden-states-of-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/new-laser-technique-reveals-nearly-20-previously-hidden-states-of-matter","title":{"rendered":"New laser technique reveals nearly 20 previously hidden states of matter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/new-laser-technique-reveals-nearly-20-previously-hidden-states-of-matter.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In 2023, physicist Xiaodong Xu at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washington.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">University of Washington <\/a>\u2014working with researchers from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cornell.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Cornell<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.sjtu.edu.cn\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Shanghai Jiao Tong University <\/a>\u2014found that twisting atom-thin layers of molybdenum ditelluride into a special pattern called a moir\u00e9 lattice could produce the fractional quantum anomalous Hall effect without magnets. This was a huge leap, because magnets can disrupt superconducting materials used in quantum technology.<\/p>\n<p>Xu\u2019s team discovered two such magnet-free fractional states. That alone was remarkable. But Zhu and his colleagues suspected there were more waiting to be found. The secret lies in the moir\u00e9 pattern. When the layers are slightly rotated relative to each other, they form a honeycomb-like grid at the atomic scale.<\/p>\n<p>This structure changes the way <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrighterside.news\/post\/quantum-state-of-electrons-measured-for-the-first-time-ever\/\">electrons<\/a> move, encouraging them to team up in unusual ways that create fractional charges. In other words, the twist turns the material into a playground for exotic quantum phases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2023, physicist Xiaodong Xu at the University of Washington \u2014working with researchers from Cornell and Shanghai Jiao Tong University \u2014found that twisting atom-thin layers of molybdenum ditelluride into a special pattern called a moir\u00e9 lattice could produce the fractional quantum anomalous Hall effect without magnets. This was a huge leap, because magnets can disrupt [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221970\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}